Sundance Channel Ventures Into Scripted Series Realm
Rainbow Outlet Follows AMC's Lead Starting With Mini 'Carlos' This Fall
by Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 2/9/2010 1:11:20 PM
Sundance Channel is following sister Rainbow Media network AMC into the scripted series realm, leading off this fall with a three-night miniseries, Carlos, starring Edgar Ramirez as the famed international terrorist.
"We couldn't be happier to have Carlos as our first out of the gate scripted project," Sundance general manager Sarah Barnett said at a press briefing in New York City Tuesday morning. "It's urgent, it's important and it's addictive, fascinating, roller-coaster storytelling."
Carlos, coming to Sundance Channel
The production, directed by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (Summer Hours), starts with the early career of "Carlos the Jackal" in the early 1970s. Barnett said of star Ramirez (Che): "He is devastatingly attractive. He has this charisma, which I think is a big part of the story. You see him become the myth. You see how he works with law enforcement, and works with the media, to really become this mythic, scary but also glamorous playboy, international terrorist."
She added: "You see a lot of Edgar Ramirez in this production and the ladies ain't complaining, let me say that."
The film's real-life subject, by the way, is suing the filmmakers, Film en Stock, which shot it for France's Canal Plus, for editorial control, to protect his image.
Rainbow Entertainment Services COO Ed Carroll said Sundance swill run the miniseries on three consecutive days -- much as sister service AMC did with its adaptation of The Prisoner last November -- to maximize marketing resources behind the project, which will screen at the Cannes Film Festival. Carroll noted that Sundance was further looking to boost the film's profile by hopefully running it during the New York Film Festival.
Scripted series in development for Sundance are: Triple Crossing, a geopolitical crime drama set in South America; The Clinic, a suspense thriller set in the near future; Fear of Flying, an adaptation of Erica Jong's iconic novel and Shutterbabe, the adventures of a globetrotting female photojournalist, Sundance said in a release.
According to Carroll, Sundance will be looking at developing more scripted series with a goal toward one launch each year.
Sundance, assimilated into Cablevision-owned Rainbow's fold in 2008, also laid out its 2010 slate of new and returning original series.
Barnett, a marketer at the channel since 2005 who took its helm last year, said she sees Sundance as "a rebooted arts channel that makes a new kind of noise, tapping into what's now, and what's next, with flair and fun."
Sundance Channel GM Sarah Barnett
Returning to the channel are:
The Lazy Environmentalist (season 2). Hosted by eco-entrepreneur and author Josh Dorfman who presents clever, stylish and convenient green innovations. (April 20.) PM et/pt)
Man Shops Globe (season 2). Following Keith Johnson, buyer-at-large for lifestyle store Anthropologie. (June 2010.)
The Day Before (season 2). The leadup to runway shows. (September 2010).
Iconoclasts (season 5). Pairing innovators in film, literature, design, food, music and business. (September 2010.)
New to the channel are:
Seduce Me: The spawn of Web hit Green Porno, this new series will once again star Isabella Rossellini, only this time, she acts out the bizarre seduction strategies of nature's most unique creatures, from bed bugs to jellyfish. (5 films premiere on April 20 on sundancechannel.com; 5 films debut in August 2010).
Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: Through the lives of four couples, this series explores the relationships between women and their gay best friends and the emotional and social tensions that frame them. August 2010.
For 2011, Sundance Channel is expanding its "Full Frontal Fashion" franchise with new series -- and officially greenlit a second season of documentary series Brick City, profiling the hoped-for renaissance of Newark, N.J., under charismatic mayor Cory Booker.
Brick City filmmakers Marc Levin and Mark Benjamin (the series is also produced by Forest Whitaker) have been filming in Newark, since last fall, Levin said. Themes emerging in the second season will be Booker's re-election campaign this spring, the impact on Newark residents of the economic and housing crises, and continuing storylines involving Booker's police director, Garry McCarthy, and former gangbangers turned social advocates Creep and Jayda, he said.
The first season of Brick City is now airing on Sundance's video-on-demand platform -- which Levin said is the way many of his friends first saw the series.
Sundance has four fashion series in development: Agent Of Fashion, about a designers' agency, Brian Stark's Brand Equity Showroom; All On The Line, pairing an expert host with an emerging fashion designer whose line is in crisis; Fashion Fix, with a similar theme as All on the Line; and Fashion Icons, about iconoclastic designers creating new piece for their muses to model.
Design series in development are:
Teman & Teran, a docu-series following identical twins Teman and Teran Evans, Harvard educated jewelry designers, production designers and architects, as they develop and execute time sensitive projects; Made On Earth, in which industrial designer Stephen Burks travels with artists to remote villages around the world to learn the native techniques used to make sustainable products and bring resources back to the local community; and Design Intervention, in which branding guru Brian Collins tackles branding and design problems at some of the biggest and most famous companies in the world.
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